NO2ID

Over on the Register, we find Schools can fingerprint children without parental consent



I'm not sure I'm happy with that. Surely children are not in a position to properly determine the appropriateness of the use and the IT security aspects, to the same extent as their parents?

[Note: One could think of parallels with shoplifting, drug-taking, paedophilia, etc; even smoking tobacco (heaven forbid).]

The Government indicating to children that they do not have a duty of obedience to their parents, but only of duty to the Government, is reminiscent of other countries with extreme politics, to left and right, that we generally find unacceptably extreme.

Best regards

I read somewhere that one Government minister said that schools should ask parents first but if they didn't there was not a lot which could be done.

It does say that parents have a right to refuse the fingerprinting.
Library books etc. will be issued with tickets as normal.

Some schools say it is compulsory some do not...

Frightening, when parents rights are ignored.

It seems incredible; children are in no position to make an informed judgement about the issue, and even if they were, I can't see a child refusing to give a fingerprint under practically any circumstances, let alone using the somewhat tenuous argument that it might breach the Data Protection Act!

The Data Protection Act talks of consent of the individual - essentially that's consent of the child


does this mean they have a right not to be placed on the childrens register????????????

Fingerprint 'biometrics' may be regarded as data once they have been taken, but to mind, the question is should they be taken? There used to be the concept in law that the body was 'inviolable'. Now it seems that, at some unnoticed point in time, we crossed over a threshold where that concept became quaint. Did anyone notice?

Surely some teachers or teachers' unions would have opposed or raised this matter by now - I find it incredible that teachers are meekly going along with this ?

The schools brought in fingerprinting and assured everybody that the fingerprints would be safe and secure. Nothing to worry about etc.

Surely this is a prime example of misselling, in that the product is not what was advertised!

Is it not possible to take legal action from this stand point?

I'm wondering if there's a legal technicality there somewhere - fingerprints and and iris scan might be classed as external, but a retina scan would qualify as 'invasive'.

Where would a school stand on this issue if they were one of the ones that didn't allow parents to take pictures of their kids (e.g. sports days etc, assuming they still have those)?